Michael Jordan Gatorade ad with Mia Hamm remade

The Michael Jordan Gatorade ads were some of the most iconic commercials of the 1990s (though it was His Airness’s ads with McDonald’s that partially inspired the curious-yet-classic Space Jam).

One of the most familiar was the 1997 ad titled “Michael Vs Mia” with Team USA soccer star Mia Hamm, set to the tune of the playground ditty “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better).”

The song, surprisingly, originally came from the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun, and was composed by Irving Berlin, long before women’s sports took charge in making society a more equitable landscape, though not long after Rosie the Riveter returned to the kitchen following the end of World War II.

And given the current wave of 1990s nostalgia, it’s not that surprising that this ad would be redone, the news of which broke on The Today Show on Monday, March 15.

An iconic Michael Jordan Gatorade ad was remade for a new generation – does it live up to its predecessor?

The original ad, shot in black and white to better contrast the vibrant tones of the Gatorade flavors (orange for Michael, Frost Blue for Mia), sees the pair of superstars playing one-on-one basketball and soccer before experimenting with fencing, karate, tennis, track and field.

Both Jordan and Hamm won national championships at their respective sports while at the University of North Carolina, as well as multiple Olympic gold medals.

Jordan, of course, is a Basketball Hall of Famer who won six championships with the Chicago Bulls, the 1992 Barcelona Olympics gold medal as part of the Dream Team, six MVP Awards, made it to 14 All-Star Games, and played fairly decently in baseball’s minor leagues.

Besides all that, he’s been a fixture of television commercials for McDonald’s, Gatorade, Hanes and more for years, and is the owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets and NASCAR’s 23XI Racing (and former player/owner for the Washington Wizards).

Hamm was one of the first female team sports megastars, playing for the USWNT for 17 years and having endorsement deals with Nike, Gatorade and PowerBar, in addition to being the public face of the WUSA as a member of the Washington Freedom, the first women’s pro soccer league that eventually led to the current NWSL. She’s also married to six-time baseball All-Star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, who played for the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers.

The remade version is for Gatorade Zero (a sugar-free version) and stars former Olympians Usain Bolt (Jamaica track) and Abby Wambach (USWNT soccer) facing off in a variety of events including track, soccer, TikTok fitness challenges and table tennis, and attempting to try speed skating on rollerblades.

In a terrifically meta moment, Jordan looks at his phone, watching Bolt and Wambach’s antics, frowns and says “No, you can’t,” to which Hamm replies “Yes I can!” before sinking a golf putt.

Bolt is an eight-time Olympic gold medalist who set the world record in the 100-meter dash of 9.69 seconds at the 2008 Beijing Games, also medaling at the 2012 London Games and 2016 Rio Games in addition to sponsorships with Puma and Visa, and brief explorations of professional soccer in Australia and a stint as a music producer.

Wombach won two Olympic gold medals of her own, playing as a teammate of Hamm’s on the USWNT and Freedom and helping establish the NWSL as a member of the Western New York Flash.

If this spot were made with current athletes in basketball and soccer, it would likely star LeBron James and Alex Morgan, which would have made sense with James starring in Space Jam: A New Legacy later this summer.

As a sports-obsessed child of the late 90s, Michael and Mia were some of my foremost heroes, so I was a huge fan of the original ad, and this is a fun update on the classic Michael Jordan Gatorade commercial.

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